captive, and sold as a slave to Naaman, could not have been taught in the law as those children, who in the earlier and happier periods of their church were both publicly and privately instructed in all things whatsoever the Lord had commanded. Throughout the land of Israel, in her days, an idolatrous service was substituted for the true worship of Jehovah. The sons of Levi were no longer recognized as teaching priests. "The lowest of the people," that is those who were not of that tribe, aspired to that office: and though a remnant remained who neither bowed the knee to Baal nor worshipped the golden calves which were in Dan and in Bethel, it seems apparent that they were kept in their allegiance mainly through the instrumentality of those prophets who were raised up from time to time, as witnesses for the truth, and pastors of the lost sheep of the house of Israel. What Aaron and Eliezer were to the great body of the people, in the best days of Judaism, such Elijah and Elisha became to the ten tribes that owned Samaria's rule, in the decline of their civil and ecclesiastical polity: and we may fairly judge that with the decay of the ritual observances, the knowledge of the law would become partial and obscure: at least in the minds of the common people and of this we have incidental proof in the history of the little maid of Israel.

The Syrian, to whose service this child was sold, though afflicted with a disease which was acknowledged on all hands to be as loathsome as it was generally incurable, was not prevented by it from holding the highest employments of state among his own people nor interdicted from those consolements of his lot which might spring from public honors or so

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cial endearments. Naaman, the leper, was a great man and honourable," in the eyes of his master, and of all Syria and many perhaps there were, who would have deemed the leper's skin a light burden borne together with its concomitants of rank and fame. The judgments of this world are usually in opposition to the oracles of God: but the eye that has been trained to view all things in the light of those oracles, discerns another aspect in the dispensations of life. To the little Hebrew maid, Naaman, the Captain of the Syrian host, was but a leper. A leper-the excommunicated of heaven-the ritually unclean: to approach whose person, was defilement; to touch whose raiment, was pollution. It is difficult for a Christian, even with the bible in his hand, to realize the religious horror which a pious Jew would feel in being compelled to hold daily communion with a leper. Motives of compassion for the person so afflicted, would probably have far less urgency, than the uneasiness arising from conscious guilt incurred by contact with one from whom the law had imperatively commanded separation.

The treatment of the leper (as the little maid appears to have known) was not, by the law, left in his own hand, or in that of his family. To the priests alone, belonged the power to pronounce concerning him to shut up, or loose: to offer for his cleansing : or to declare him unclean. By complying with the ritual of the law, lepers had been cleansed: and of this fact the little maid appears to have had full conviction, though there is an evident confusion in her knowledge as to the individual appointed to procure the leper's release. It was her lot to live in evil days, when the brotherhood of Israel dwelt not together in

unity when ten of the tribes had forsaken the ordinances of the law; and turned their backs upon the covenant. The mercy of God had not, it is true, left them without a teacher and a witness, after their rejection of the seed of Levi. “He sent prophets among them," and by these, the falling worship of Jehovah was for a time sustained; and the Divine chastisements averted. We read of Elijah's erecting an altar, and offering sacrifice, and we find both him and Elisha superintending the schools of the prophets: doing, it would seem by divine permission, the duties of the sons of Levi, from which they had been forcibly "thrust out." We do not marvel therefore, to hear the little maid, who if she had been of Judah instead of Israel, and well taught in the knowledge of the law, would have said-" Would to God my master were with the High Priest in Jerusalem :”—exclaiming, as was natural in her case and circumstanees, "Would God my master were with the prophet that is in Samaria, for he would recover him of his leprosy." It does not appear that Elisha even took upon him so much of the priest's office, as to receive those afflicted with leprosy, and desirous of The testimony of our Lord is against it: Many lepers were in Israel in the days of Elisha, and none of them was cleansed save Naaman the Syrian." The method prescribed by Elisha to Naaman, was altogether contrary to, and distinct from the usages of the priests enjoined by the law, and such as shewed the case to be quite out of the usual order of occurrences: but that there was a blending in the mind of the little maid, of instructions derived from a partial knowledge of the law, and an accredited hearsay of the supernatural powers of

cure.

that holy man of God who had his occasional abode in Samaria, a recognition of her master's affliction, in the light which it was viewed by devout Jews, viz. as a judicial disease, whose cure could only be effected by due compliance with the ordinances of God; and an earnest wish on her part that this desirable end might be accomplished, is quite evident from the facts recorded concerning her. And in this history we may learn of what vast importance is even a slight acquaintance with the word of God, joined to a reverential love for his ordinances. To the halfinstructed zeal of a young Jewish believer, Naaman owed the cure of his bodily disease, and the conversion of his soul. It is not meant that other great designs of God's providence were not accomplished by the miracle wrought at the Jordan, or that other great lessons were not enforced by the facts of this remarkable history; but in tracing the agency employed to effect so memorable a circumstance, we are constrained to dwell on the value and importance, to that Syrian household, of having among its members one, nurtured, albeit sparingly, with "the sincere milk of the word," taught to hate and flee from what was polluting, and endowed with knowledge sufficient to point out the way whereby others might be cleansed.

And is it not important to christian households, to have among them such as are "instructed out of the law?" seeing that these must of necessity become "teachers of babes." Where, but from the law and the testimony, shall the servant gain true notions of the moral pollution of our nature, or the way of cleansing open to all? Where, else, shall she learn to loath and hate every evil way? Where, else, shall

she be instructed to breathe the fervent wish, that all whose case demands it, may go to that Prophet with whom alone is cleansing for sin and for uncleanness? The religious education of the poor, desirable as it is for their own welfare, as affording the best and only effective chart for their guidance in their difficult and perplexing path below, as well as opening to their view the bright rewards and abundant consolations of a better inheritance above; is also unspeakably important as it respects those with whom they are brought into such close and familiar contactthe children of their employers. The amount of influence possessed over the ductile minds of children by those who are the constant companions of their earlier years, the sharers in their joys and sorrows and sports, is not to be estimated by those who think of education only as comprising a daily amount of book-knowledge and accomplishments; and not, as it really is, the development of heart and character, which social beings gain by companionship with their fellow beings, whether they be noble or ignoble, wise or foolish.

"Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones that believe in me." The history of the little maid affords an apt illustration of this charge of our Great Prophet. The words of a child and a slave may seem a light matter, and unworthy to be regarded by the great and the renowned. The Syrian general must have beheld in his many incursions into the land of Israel, lepers lying without the gates of besieged cities and these were without a cure. Shall he then listen to the fond dreaming of a child? Shall he give credence to the bold assertion that there was recovery for him whose wealth and fame had not been